They are NOT "unaccompanied immigrant children", they are ILLEGAL AIENS. We have to stop letting the left control the language surrounding these issues. As Rush Limbaugh has so often said, "words mean things."
2008 Law Does Not Allow Alien Child Invasion
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/072514-710488-2008-trafficking-law-does-not-apply.htm
Under the definition of what constitutes an unaccompanied child (UAC) in the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, most children from countries other than Canada or Mexico do not qualify to stay here while they await a hearing.
The law says that to receive the UAC designation the illegal alien must be under 18 and without “a parent or legal guardian in the United States.” Yet about 90% of the non-Mexican and non-Canadian children pouring across the border are placed with family members or guardians in America.
An illegal immigrant who arrives at the U.S. border who is not a victim of trafficking and has family inside the United States should not be benefiting from protections in the 2008 trafficking law.
Indeed, there’s no need to amend this law to deal with the current crisis. The problem could end by strictly enforcing the letter of the 2008 law.
Human trafficking involves the transport of children against their will for illicit purposes and without the consent of their parents. The law was designed to prevent the sexual exploitation of children.
Smuggling is not trafficking. It is not human trafficking when the families pay fees to smugglers who bring the children into the U.S.
The Obama administration appears to be hiding behind the 2008 law and acting like it requires them to allow the current wave of illegal immigration to continue.
In fact, it does not — plus the administration’s position is contradicted by its own Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson.
At a press conference Tuesday, Johnson admitted that nearly all the 50,000-plus Central American youths who have crossed the Texas border since October are accompanied by smugglers hired by the youth’s parents or families. “It is our observation and our experience that almost all of them are smuggled,” he said.